Chapter Nine #2
That name sent a chill through me, as well it might.
I have mentioned Liddesdale before, as anybody talking of the old Border must. It was the worst valley in the Borderland and therefore perhaps the most dangerous place in the whole of Europe.
Even royal armies walked wary when passing through, and although the King had a garrison there in Hermitage Castle, that place had its own reputation of cruelty and menace.
You will have heard of robber barons? Well in Liddesdale, every baron was a robber and every family a riding family; you will know that in our Border the name riding and raiding were synonymous.
A riding family was one that struck out by night or day to reive or rob the cattle and goods from others, be they ten miles away or a hundred and ten.
Every night from autumn to spring the hills were busy with reiving bands that could be three strong or three thousand.
Liddesdale was home to the most dangerous of these families and we had to pass it to get home.
I did not sleep well that day as we lay between the red fangs of the wolf with the air damp above and the ground hard beneath.
Hugh scooped a hold to cup my hip, which helped and twice during the day I stirred, to see him on watch.
He looked down on me, put a finger to his lips and winked.
I woke with his jack covering me, a pounding head, and the knowledge that we had a bad night ahead augmented by the tension between us. I handed him back his jack without a word. I did not know how to thank him that day.
'Are you ready?' Standing at the side of the Wolf Craigs with the sun setting behind him, Hugh's face was hidden. I saw him in silhouette with his broad shoulders, trim waist, and the flare of his hips leading to long straight legs.
'You look like some sort of Greek God,' I said and immediately regretted my words as he turned away.
'That was meant to be a compliment,' I added.
'I know it was,' he said shortly. 'Mount Kailzie and ride.'
I mounted Kailzie and I rode, wishing I had never opened my mouth or tried friendship with this moody, capable, complex man.
The Moss looked exactly the same as it had the previous night, dark and damp, with patches of mist drifting around the peat-bogs and twisted trees like the ghosts of the damned, leaking leaves to a fluky wind.
'Look.' Hugh pointed ahead. I saw what looked like a small copse of trees with firelight flickering at their side. 'A watch fire. The Armstrongs have posted men there.' He studied the fire, slowly counting. 'I see five men.'
'Can't we go round?' I asked.
In reply, he took me by the hand and helped me, quite gently from the back of my horse. He led me ten steps to the right. 'Stop there,' he said, 'and stretch out one foot.'
I did so. The mud sucked at me so fiercely I thought I might lose my boot. I withdrew quickly, with Hugh holding me.
'There is a stretch of black bog like that all the way around this damnable moss,' Hugh said, 'mile upon mile of it, except for three places, the three yetts, or gates of Tarras. This is the Black Yett, the least known of them. We can drown in the bog or face the Armstrongs.'
I was silent for a space. 'What do we do?'
'I need you to keep your tongue under control and do exactly as I say.' Hugh had his answer ready. 'Can you do that?'
'I don't know about my tongue…' I began and stopped myself. 'Yes,' I said. 'Yes, I can do that.'
'Good.' He helped me back on Kailzie, where the renewed pressure pushed into my tender parts.
I did not protest. 'Now hold on and trust me.
' Walking in front, he led me a full fifty paces into the dark to one of the wind-twisted Scots Pines.
'Stand here,' he said, 'and the tree will shield your shape.
The wind is coming from the west so it will drive your scent away from the track. '
I nodded, obeying his instructions not to speak.
'I will distract the Armstrongs long enough for them to leave the yett unguarded.
They will ride past you into the Moss. I want you to wait until all five have passed and then you will come out and ride through the yett as if all the devils of hell were sticking red hot pokers into your…
' he stopped as I concealed my smile. Hugh had nearly dropped his guard then and I liked him all the more for it.
'When all five have passed I want you to ride as fast as you can through the yett.
There is a small slope on the other side.
Go down the slope and turn right. Ride straight and true until you come to a ruined chapel. Wait for me there. Have you got that?'
'I have got that,' I said.
'If I am not there within two hours then I am not coming,' Hugh continued. 'In that case, you must wait for dark tomorrow and ride northward; follow the Pole Star.'
'Why would you not come?' I asked in a small voice.
'Because I will be dead,' Hugh said.
'What?' But I spoke to myself. Hugh had vanished into the dark as if he had never been there.
I sat on Kailzie beside that gnarled pine with the ache of loneliness in my heart and fear in my soul.
'But I don't want you dead,' I said softly, 'I want you with me.
' Nobody heard except the wind, and the wind does not care what we want.
It follows its own course, whatever that happens to be.
And anyway, Hugh was not my man; Robert was my man and he would be out there somewhere, scouring the hills for me.
I could see the flicker of firelight by the darker patch that I knew to be woodland, and I could smell the occasional whiff of smoke, sweet and pleasant in the night air.
It was a few long minutes before I heard a long drawn out call, like the scream of a hunting vixen, and the words 'A Veitch! A Veitch!'
That was Hugh. There was no other Veitch in the area and nobody else would beard the Armstrongs in their own Tarras Moss.
I heard the clash of steel on steel and then the sound of galloping hooves as one horseman thundered past me.
A few seconds later came the shout 'A Veitch!
A Veitch!' once again, and then more horsemen and the cry, 'An Armstrong!
' Long drawn out and echoing to the silent sky.
Tempted to charge in their wake and help Hugh, I knew that I would be more hindrance than help and instead pushed Kailzie forward and toward the Black Yett.
I was nervous for Hugh and apprehensive in case the Armstrongs had left a man behind.
I should not have bothered; the only man there lay on his back, arms outstretched.
He may have been dead, he may have been alive, I did not know.
I passed him with a scared glance and trotted on, hoping that Hugh was safe in the Moss as I tried to remember my instructions.
The Black Yett was ill marked by two large stones like the ones the ancient Druids used for worship, or so I have been told, and beyond there was a slope, just as Hugh had said.
We slithered down, Kailzie and I, and I nearly dismounted myself in my haste.
There was grass at the foot, sweet and fresh despite the lateness of the season, and I thought: was it left, or right?
It was right, I was sure it was right, so I pulled Kailzie in that direction and kicked in my heels to cover the ground at a faster rate.
We had not travelled more than half a mile when I saw the shell of a building that could only be the chapel, although only God knew why anybody would wish to build a chapel in such a forlorn spot.
Somebody told me that this had once been a spital, a hospital, a stopping off spot for travellers traversing the lonely road between the great abbeys of the Scottish Border and the towns of England, and that may well be true.
All I saw was a small, stone building with a pointed gable pierced with a round window.
I led Kailzie inside this ruined sanctuary and let her graze because God knew she had been hard-worked on short rations the last few days.
I was getting rather fond of that brown mare.
I was also getting rather fond of Hugh, moody and unpredictable though he was.
I leaned against the cold, moss-furred stone walls of that ancient building, listened to the wind and waited.
And waited. Border bred, I did not normally feel the cold but as I stood there a chill seemed to creep over me.
It may have emanated from the ground or from the worn stones with whatever history they had, I do not know.
I only know that within a short space of time I was shivering, pulling my clothes up to cover me, and hoping that Hugh came along soon.
I began seeing and hearing things in the dark, imagining that the rustle of bracken in a crack in the wall was an Armstrong coming to get me, or the distant bark of a fox was a horseman nosing in with drawn sword and evil intent.
I began to form people out of shadows, such was the state of my imagination, so that a shift of moonlight cast the very image of Wild Will walking toward me, and the glint of a star on a burn became the ripple of light along the blade of a broadsword.
I pulled my shawl closer about me and gasped with shock as a voice broke the silence.
'You did well, Jeannie.'
'Hugh?' I peered into the dark, half fearful in case it was an Armstrong or the Redcap demon from Hermitage Castle only a few miles away.
'Hugh it is.' He stepped into a circle of moonlight, looking taller than I remembered from only an hour or two ago.
'The Armstrongs?'
'They won't be bothering us,' he assured me. 'I have a gift for you out here.'
I followed him outside the walls of the chapel, part expecting to see the head of a dead Armstrong or some such thing. As children, Robert and I had scared each other with such tales. When faced with the reality there was no pleasure; only the fear was real.